Over the next decade, UZ needs to buy 315 new locomotives,

UZ board member František Bureš writes in a column. These purchases are essential to keeping Eurasia’s fourth largest railway running. Only 5% of UZ 3,600 locomotives are under 25 years. The rest – virtually all Soviet models – are past their warranty dates. Last month, the Rada ratified an agreement to buy 130 electric locomotives from France’s Alstom. The degree of localization is to be up to 35%. In 2014, Ukraine lost its lone locomotive plant, in Russia-controlled Luhansk.